|
INTRODUCTION
On behalf of our
students, staff, and faculty, welcome to the Homepage of the Mississippi
College Department of Psychology and Counseling. It is a pleasure to have
you with us via the internet and to make information available to you about
our department. This year marks the 180th anniversary of Mississippi College. It also marks the 107th
anniversary of the existence of a department that has housed psychology
and, subsequently, counseling course content and programs.
At the graduate
level, we offer four different programs currently preparing students for a
variety of careers in the helping professions. We offer a 51 semester hour
Master of Education in School Counseling program that is accredited by the
National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the
Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs
(CACREP.) We offer a 66 semester hour Education Specialist in School
Counseling program accredited by NCATE. Both of these school
counseling programs lead toward certification as a School Counselor. We
offer two Master of Science in Counseling programs, both of which are accrediated by
CACREP. One is the 60 semester hour Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling program which
prepares the student for working within mental and behavioral health
settings, such as human service agencies and hospitals, private practice,
as well as career and educational environments. The other is the 60 semester
hour Master of Science in Marriage and Family Counseling program which prepares the student for working
within mental health centers, hospitals, industry, churches and private
practice.
HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT
Historically, 1873
was the first year that an academic course, taught out of the newly
established Mississippi College School of Moral Philosophy, included
content related to psychology. It was not until 18 years later, in 1891,
that Dr. William Sheldon Webb, a former President of Mississippi College,
was appointed the first Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Ethics. A
structural home for the emerging concepts of psychology - the School of Psychology, Ethics and Logic - was
subsequently created in 1898. In 1914, Dr. W. H. Weathersby
introduced a full course called Educational Psychology, and by 1919 Weathersby was Head of the new Department of Education
and Psychology that offered courses in General Psychology, Human
Psychology, Educational Psychology, Mental Tests, and Educational Tests and
Measurements. By 1933 courses were being offered in Child Psychology and
Adolescent Psychology. A new Department of Education, Psychology, and
Philosophy was established in 1940 and course offerings expanded to include
Social Psychology, Applied Psychology and Abnormal Psychology. Two years
later a name change resulted in the Department of Psychology and Philosophy
with a new course in Statistics added. The first Bachelor of Arts in
Psychology was offered as an undergraduate degree in 1945, which was also
the first year that the Mississippi
College catalog
listed a separate Department of Psychology. Clinical Psychology was added
as a course that same year.
In 1950, Dr. Charles
W. Scott began the Counseling Education Program, the first of its kind
created by a Baptist
College. Dr. Scott
developed a curriculum that allowed graduate students to earn a masters
degree in counseling and receive AA state certification for School
Counseling. In 1959, the name Department of Education and Psychology was
adopted and the department moved to its current location in Lowrey Hall. Dr. Scott applied for and received a
three-year National Defense Education Act grant that ran from 1961 to 1963.
With those funds, he created the Counseling and Guidance Training Institute
at MC that served not only Mississippi,
but also Alabama, Louisiana
and Arkansas.
The NDEA grant funds paid for tape recorders, sound equipment and one-way
mirrors used while teaching counseling techniques. They also paid, in 1961,
for Dr. E.G. Williamson, Dean of Students and Professor of Psychology at
the University
of Minnesota, to come
to MC as a visiting lecturer. In 1963, Dr. Donald E. Super of the
Department of Psychological Foundations and Services at Columbia University
was the NDEA lecturer.
In 1969, Mississippi College signed a Compliance
Agreement so that there would be no discrimination in the admission or
treatment of any student on account of national origin, race or color. Over
the next two decades, from 1970 to 1990, a School
of Education emerged at Mississippi College with the renamed Department
of Psychology and Counseling housed there along with the Departments of
Teacher Education and Family and Consumer Sciences. The inclusion of the
word counseling in the department name meant that counselor training would
continue to receive the attention it needed. Masters Programs in Guidance
and Counseling, Community Counseling and School Psychometry
were created during that time as well as an Education Specialist in School
Counseling Program. Also, the Department of Sociology and Social Work
established a Masters program in Marriage and Family Counseling. A
wide-ranging counseling curriculum was crafted to support those programs.
During the decade of
the 90's the department became even more innovative while attempting to
provide students with the best possible counselor training. The Center for
Reality Therapy was established within the department early in the decade.
Four faculty members pursued and obtained Reality Therapy Certification so
that they could serve as instructors and supervisors for courses jointly
sponsored by Mississippi
College and the
William Glasser Institute. Nearly 100 graduate
students have completed the course work and training necessary to become
Reality Therapy Certified. Department faculty also helped write a three
year continuing education grant to sponsor the Entergy Institute, a program
funded to train school counselors in the latest aspects of vocational,
lifestyle and career counseling. Counselors from Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Arkansas were able to apply for and
benefit from that training. The department has also maintained its
tradition of bringing in guest instructors and lecturers of national and
international renown with the list including Dr. Albert Ellis, Columbia University;
Dr. William Glasser, the William Glasser Institute; Dr.Gerald
Corey, California State University
- Fullerton; Dr. John Wiesz,
University of California at Los Angeles;
and Dr. David Clark, University of
Toronto, Canada.
The department has now upgraded and renamed the counseling programs
and consolidated counseling programs on campus by incorporating the
marriage and family therapy program into the department. Four counseling
programs now exist: the Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling (60 semester hours);
the Master of Science in Marriage and Family Counseling (60 semester hours); the Master of Education in School
Counseling (51 semester hours); and the Education Specialist in School
Counseling (66 semester hours).
A portion of the information on the history of psychology and counseling at Mississippi College from 1873
through 1980 included above was drawn primarily from works written by Jaime Knight (B.S. 1998) and
Jennifer Owen (B.S. 1998) under the supervision of Andrew J. Velkey, II, PhD,
Assistant Professor of Psychology.
|
